A division bench of Calcutta High Court has asked the school service commission to recruit 14,052 assistant teachers for the upper primary level (Classes VI to VIII) of government-aided schools.

The candidates who will be appointed wrote the 2015 Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), which was held in 2016.

No one could be recruited because of a barrage of petitions against the recruitment process citing alleged irregularities.

A division bench headed by Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty said in a written order on Wednesday: “This Court directs the Commission to prepare and publish the final merit list and the panel in terms of Rule 12 (5) and Rule 12 b(6) of the 2016 Rules respectively of the 14,052 candidates, in accordance with law within a period of four weeks from date.”

“Within a period of four weeks thereafter, the Commission shall hold counselling and recommend all the 14,052 candidates, who appeared in the PT (Personality Test). Upon such recommendation, the appointment letters shall be issued to the said candidates by the competent authority within a period of four weeks thereafter, in accordance with law.”

The court in its order said the “unsuccessful candidates” cannot halt the recruitment process.

“The unsuccessful candidates had again sought to frustrate the selection process since the results are not palatable to them. Exercising the authority of judicial review this Court cannot sit in appeal over such assessment and cannot convert judicial review proceedings into an inquisitorial one,” the written order says.

A commission official said the unsuccessful candidates are the ones whose names were not on the merit list, which was prepared based on the candidates’ performance in the written test, personality test and the academic scores.

The commission had on October 18 last year announced, following an order of the court, that they would counsel the candidates whose names are on the merit list.

However, no recruitment letter could be issued as some petitioners moved a division bench headed by Justice Soumen Sen alleging anomalies in the screening process.

A lawyer who represented the petitioners said on February 16, when the division bench last heard the case, that there were anomalies in the TET scores and the academic scores awarded to the candidates.

The court on Wednesday questioned the commission’s decision to reassess the OMR sheets of the 14,052 candidates who appeared in the personality test.

“Mr. Mukherjee learned senior advocate appearing for the Commission has, however, not been able to justify the act of the Commission towards rechecking of the documents of the candidates, who appeared in the personality test (14,052 candidates).... In our opinion, the Commission had no jurisdiction to re-evaluate or recheck or scrutinize various aspects of each of the aforesaid 14052 candidates by an independent agency after completion of the PT. Such act is thus not sustainable in law and is set aside,” the court said.

A reassessment of OMR sheets of the candidates had suggested a mismatch of marks in around 1,000 cases.

Commission chairperson Siddhartha Majumder said on Wednesday: “We will act in accordance with the court order.”